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A Look Back at One of the Original Phreaks
tmalone writes "The New York Times is running an end of year piece about the most interesting people who have died this year. One of their picks is Joybubbles, also known as Josef Engressia, or 'Whistler.' He was born blind and discovered at the age of 7 that he could whistle 2600 hertz into a phone to make free long-distance calls. He was one of the original phone phreaks, got arrested for phone fraud, and was even employed by the phone company. The article deals more with his personal life than with his technical exploits, but is a very interesting story."
Seems like that domain has been hihjacked to randomly redirect you to a certain section of that stupid city.
"You know...the Phantom Phreak...the King of Nynex?"
Living With a Nerd
I thought it was an article about John Draper (a.k.a Captain Crunch) Then again he used a whistle and didn't just put his lips together and blow... It's sad to hear about it though...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
I'm sure most geeks here have seen this video. But for those who haven't, History of Hacking.
Still have my redbox in a drawer somewhere, probably next to my beige box and attempted homemade autodialer. Also still keep redbox tones on my MP3 players, more for nostalga than practicality since i have a cell phone and they havnt worked in 10 years.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
some of these jerks seem to have a hard time catching on... /. has a ton of traffic you just have to know that this is not the spot to go picking fights.
the one thing I don't get is this: even if
I was involved with an internet radio show a while back that did an excellent interview with him that covered a lot of interesting technical topics. http://audio.textfiles.com/shows/haxorradio/haxor_radio_show_04.mp3
Slight offtopic but there's a guy that just made a graphic novel about the history of phreaking. I'm not sure if Joybubbles is in it but looks neat. http://www.edpiskor.com/wizzy.html
Hacker Media
You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and...blow. ...
(Casablanca)
more myminicity shit
MP3 Search Engine
NPR did a bit on Joybubbles (Joe's handle) some months ago.
Very good listen.
More
For some reason that article braught me into tears...
Just out of curiosity, is the blind character "Whistler" from "Sneakers" based on him?
"blind faith", that he would be useful as an employee...
"He was one of the original phone phreaks, got arrested for phone fraud, and was even employed by the phone company. The article deals more with his personal life than with his technical exploits, but is a very interesting story.""
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Anybody know what happened to The Mentor? (the Phrack magazine guru)
When I was about 14, the Minneapolis City Pages did a story on him. The story said he was listed as "Zxzyx" in the Minneapolis phone book (so that he was guaranteed the last spot) and anyone could call him anytime. I looked in the phone book, and the listing was there, and I called. I was impressed that he had the guts to live completely out in the open (and it worked for him, too).
www.cgstock.com
Please stop rehashing NYT articles.
Yep, I teared-up when I got to the part about Dawn Waters
No not in that way... You sick slashdot weirdos. God everytime someone says touch, it doesn't have to have anything to do w/ privates....
In all seriousness. Here was a guy completely in Stasis opposed to the idea of growing up. It's a great idea. I think I'll give some of his old broadcasts up.
P.S. I am looking for a way to tactilly replicate water on a touch feedback device. Anyone know of such a thing?
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Acted like a child, thought he was a child, had imaginary friends and an imaginary mother, created his own religion, etc, etc. Sounds like a complete crackpot to me.
Why is this even news? Though it is better than hearing about Brittany or Bradgelina, but it's no different, just for geeks instead of white trash.
Kerchunk
I fondly remember the olden days,(when I was a kid), and Herbert Schwartz showing me the lineman's phones that he'd socially engineered from some Bell Telephone guys. Herbie had a junction box in his back yard there in Livermore, so he could hook on and call his friends in Vienna. By not hooking on to the (correct) lines, nobody got billed for the calls. Way cool. This was back before touch-tone dialing, and it was a while before any sort of security or blocking was instituted anyway, so it was hardly phreaking. Knowing Herbert, he was still the first kid in town with the blue box or whatever. Wonder where he is these days.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I remember those days I had (have) the whole set of tones, except shaw (#) and star (*). I obtained them from a person who worked at AT&T in the last 60's. The shaw & star weren't in use yet and he couldn't get them.
In the day this was hot information, technology to separate was hard to come by. Some people could tell the different tones by listening.
What did I use them for? That would be none of your business.
All in hertz
Disconnect 2600
Key Punch 1100 & 1700 (I don't remember what this does)
Key pad numbers:
1 700 & 900
2 700 & 1100
3 900 & 1100
4 700 & 1300
5 900 & 1300
6 1100 & 1300
7 700 & 1500
8 900 & 1500
9 1100 & 1500
0 1300 & 1500
Start 1500 & 1700 (had something to do with getting the equipment to accept the numbers).
BTW you see that I've posted as Anonymous Coward, don't wast your mod points
We can't all be love revolutionaries...
http://audio.textfiles.com/shows/storiesandstuff/
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
when you imagine the above post read in Jean Shepard's voice ala A Christmas Story.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
but the only use for them was in controlling routing in setting up LD calls. they were on the operator consoles in the mid 60s when I got a tour through NW Bell. looked like ITW lighted buttons. at that time, they were not published in the bell telephone engineering standards pubs that were in places like engineering school libraries.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I used to regularly phreak calls to Joe in the mid 80s. I remember he had a phone number that ended in either 0000 or 9999, I can't remember which. Anyhow, this guy was cool. He just loved phones, and talking about phones. I remember he used to be able to tell what kind of switch a phone was on by calling it and listening to it ring. He used to be able to do pretty much everything with the phone system, but was against the people like Steve Jobs who made and sold blue boxes for a profit. We used to call Joe on Alliance Teleconferences (us being $LOD$ and friends) and we had a lot of fun. But then, some cranks (I think it might have been MOD) got his number and started harassing him. He went underground to avoid them and I lost all touch with him.
He was a great guy. I don't know how well he fared once the phone system went digital, but he was someone who made the best out of what life took from him, and what life gave him. That is, his sight was taken but his tone sensitivity was extreme.
Phone phreaking is a lost art -- an analog art, made of electronics and geeky passion. It was damaged by criminals out for nothing more than free calls, but ultimately destroyed by SS7.
I've had the idea to use all this wondrous DSP technology and massive amounts of CPU power and storage to recreate the phone network circa 1982 - a phreaker's version, as close to the real thing as possible, where you'd use a blue box to get around, and find loops, etc. Think of it as an audio adventure game. I don't have the DSP talent to make it happen though. But if I ever could get it done, I would dedicate it to the memory of Joe Engressia.
and discovered at the age of 7 that he could whistle 2600 hertz into a phone to make free long-distance calls.
I had to actually do something like this with phone modems for testing purposes. We had a bank of modems and to check which modem went to which phone number (people sometimes switched them without telling us) we would have to call the number on a voice phone across the way and then run over to the modem bank to see which lights were on.
Often the modem lights wouldn't stay on long enough from a mere phone call. Rather than run fast and risky in a crowded, wiry data center, I discovered that if I whistled certain frequencies mirroring the connect sound, the modem would think I was another modem and spend a longer time trying to connect. Thus, by learning to speak modemese, I could walk instead of run.
Table-ized A.I.
You've got a low enough UID to probably get Taco's attention. Ask him to send a C&D to these idiots.
Kudos for the New York Times, that ol' Grey Lady, for publishing such a moving obit. I think we should all recognize the man's genius, that spark which inhabits all hackers: that love of intricate systems, which beckon us to explore hidden worlds, affect their behavior, prodding, probing, and extending ourselves, eventually injecting ourselves into the system. We modern techies take for granted such intimacy with today's technology: truly, Ma Bell was Joe's real mother. Whatever you're hacking, in whatever medium, whether electronic or mechanical, analog or digital, we can all gather inspiration from Joe's skills and accomplishments (and those of other phreakers "back in the day"). Joe, God bless and rest in peace.
Dude, you've got a Slashdot UID in the low 1000's. You're trying to tell a troll, who probably only reads this site when he's bored at work, to 'get a life'. Do you have any idea how desperate you sound? The amount of effort you put into that post is insane...I think someone needs to take some of their own medicine...
Phone Phreaking is something that's never, ever going to be possible again. All modern systems are using out-of-band signalling; so playing various tones down the line is approximately as effective as shining lines down the coin slot of a payphone.
You can do some kinds of interesting things with an ISDN line, because you have access to the D-channel which is the actual, real, live out-of-band signalling channel; but they're still limited, because the exchange is acting as a man-in-the-middle and knows when you are taking the mick. For instance, you can send your own caller ID as part of the call-setup message; but it has to be a number that the phone company recognise as belonging to you, otherwise the exchange will just change it to "withheld" (or refuse to connect the call).
There are always new avenues, though. Hacking is driven by one of the same primitive instincts that fetched us down from the trees, and that instinct will always find a way to manifest itself.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. ;)
Sorry for the duplicate information. Just getting used to the forums here....
.NET framework installed for it to work. You can use the number keys on the right side of your keyboard (if you use a full-size keyboard) as an almost-real Blue Box, as well as the point and click method!
More info may be found at:
http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=31224&st=0&start=0
There is also a simple Windows blue box program at the link to try this with.
Enjoy!
Don
==============
Check out www.projectmf.com. Phiber created software patches to allow Asterisk PBX software running on a Linux PC to simulate the old 2600 and MF (multifrequency) controlled network of the 50's-60's-70's.
Remember the Esquire article?
I have a projectmf server up on 630-485-2995. It has instructions for using it when you dial in.
Access is also available via:
CNET: 1-762-2600/2601 (see www.ckts.info for gateway numbers)
Free World Dialup: 862548
Asterisk direct connection: exten => 2600,1,Dial(IAX2/cnetguest@projectmf.homelinux.com/17622600)
Note that you need a source of 2600 Hz tone and an MF dialer (NOT a regular DTMF (Touch-Tone) dialer to make ANY use of this at all.
Perfectly legal, as the system is totally private. This is more than a simulation. The call is going over a trunk group of 24 SF/MF trunks, although both sides of the trunks are terminated on the same PC. The hardware is two extra dedicated NIC cards on the PC running T1 over Ethernet over a loopback Ethernet cable. Your incoming call gets looped over one of the 24 trunks before terminating over VOIP, so you have 2600 and MF control.
Use a short burst of 2600, wait for the wink acknowledgement, followed by the MF digits. The 2600 Hz tone must be played at a somewhat higher level than the MF digits.
The system will read back the digits it hears if you dial incorrectly. Play around with volume levels, especially if just holding the PC speaker up to the phone. The MF tones do not need to be excessively loud.
You can divert a call through the box if you can generate the 2600 and MF. Just dial 2600, KP, a 10-digit phone number (no leading "1"), and ST. Experiment on the test numbers to get the levels right first.
Need a software Blue Box to use with this? Try the attached Windows application (at the end of this message). You need Microsoft
Some numbers to try:
2600 KP + 101 + ST "Weasels" recording
2600 KP + 102 + ST "Monkeys" recording
2600 KP + 103 + ST "Moo 1" recording
2600 KP + 104 + ST "Moron" recording
2600 KP + 105 + ST "Moo 2" recording
2600 KP + 106 + ST "Something wrong" recording
2600 KP + 107 + ST "Made it up" recording
2600 KP + 108 + ST "I'm bored" recording
2600 KP + 109 + ST "Don't understand" recording
2600 KP + 110 + ST "Step in stream" recording
2600 KP + 111 + ST "ProjectMF" presentation recording (exit with DTMF "0")
2600 KP + 112 + ST "Classic Tandem Stacking" recording - Evan Doorbell (exit with DTMF "0")
2600 KP + 113 + ST "Evan Doorbell juices off N1 and phreaks around. Part 1 (exit with DTMF "0")
2600 KP + 114 + ST "Evan Doorbell juices off N1 and phreaks around. Part 2 (exit with DTMF "0")
2600 KP + 115 + ST "Evan Doorbell investigates 1xx and 0xx codes (exit with DTMF "0")
2600 KP + 116 through 120 and 122 + ST "How Evan Doorbell Became a Phone Phreak, parts 1-6"
2600 KP + 600 + ST Asterisk echo test
2600 KP + 121 + ST "Operator" - Leave message if no answer
2600 KP + 123 + ST Joybubbles (Joe Engressia) 1991 Off the Hook Interview, Part 1
2600 KP + 124 + ST Joybubbles (Joe Engressia) 1991 Off the Hook Interview, Part 2
2600 KP + 161 + ST Record a comment
2600 KP + 171 + ST Playback comments. 0 to exit, * and # to skip backward and forward
2600 KP + 199 + ST 2600 Hz supervision test
2600 KP + xxx-xxx-xxxx + ST Out